Ms. C （a woman in her 50’s） C さん （５０代）

Sat, February 6, 2016 I lost my third-grade son for Tsunami. I later heard that kids were saying, “Let’s escape to the mountain”. The children were always told to make your own individual decisions, but those who just waited for the teachers to give instructions, 74 students died due to Tsunami. Those kids were raised to listen to the teachers and parents. The children simply trusted and listened to the grownups. I hope the children will learn from this lesson. I do not really wish to have the site remained as a Tsunami devastated area but I would rather have the kids to learn from the site and the experiences. My son must have wished his parents came to pick him up like other parents. How come his mother did not come to pick him up? I regret that I did not go to pick him up. However, I thought that school was the safest place for kids. Somehow, I simply believed that the kids are the safest at school. After his death, I found a bag of flower seeds in the back of his desk drawer. It was the seeds of the morning glory. The bag of the seeds said, “To the future me”. He liked baseball, so he may have wanted to become a baseball player. He may have wanted to plant the seeds and grow the morning glory. After 3.11, I did not even notice the season changed and the cherry blossoms blooming. I can no longer go to the big shopping malls because I always remember my son. It is extremely difficult for me to see kids in the same age as my son. When I go to the shopping mall in the evening on weekdays, I still see kids in the same age. I cannot go to the game stores and book stores where I used to take my son to. He would have been a 9th grade student. A boy with whom my son used to play baseball, was picked up by his parents in time and he survived. I know it is not him but I just cannot stand seeing him or hearing his voice playing. After 3.11, I went to look for my son everywhere but could not find him. I thought he was washed away to the open ocean. I was almost giving up to find him and then I heard his classmate was found in Dejima. So, I had a hope to find him. Then I found him in a rice field on April 2. He was wearing helmet and clothes. His clothes were not torn. He did not have a scratch in his face or body. The helmet band was tightened around his jaw and his skin was red. He had lost only his left shoe. He was drawn to death. He was wrapped in a vinyl and transferred by the refrigerator car. It still hurts me to see the refrigerator cars. At that time, the crematory was not in operation, so my husband drove our son’s body to a crematory in Fukushima by car. Even before 3.11, I was too scared to watch violent scenes in the TV shows but I visited the morgues to view the damaged corpse, tried finding my son based on the height. I checked the paddy farm and the beach back and forth. About 50% of the bodies were not damaged but those bodies found in the mountain, school building and the shrine had some damages. My son and his friend he used to play games with were found on the same day. My son and her body were laid in the morgues next to each other. My husband’s father passed away last year. He was older and we knew the time was coming. However, we just could not accept the fact that our child died. He was totally fine in the morning, we had meals at the same table and next each other. I totally believed that the school was the safest place, teachers are there to help and they were at the mountain side. He was taking a bus so he could have escaped with the bus. I heard that grandparents were washed away while they were waiting for their grandchildren coming back with the school bus at the bus stop. Something different could have been done. Why were the children waiting for 50 minutes at the school field without thinking about Tsunami? I will carry this guilt for the rest of my life. If we did not have a child from the first place, it would have been different. How could we lose a child after giving a birth? A nearby junior high school was closed in March, 2016. At the closing ceremony, they said “due to the decreased number of the children” but do you wonder why the number of the children was decreased? The children who were supposed to enter the school were lost in Tsunami. I am afraid that people would forget what happened. Those children wanted to do a lot of things. I feel the same though years pass by. I actually feel worse. When my co-workers talk about their children growing up such as entering and graduating the junior and high schools and colleges, I pretend I did not hear them. Those children who attended schools by the beach survived. You should take good care of your own life. My husband got cancer and said “I don’t mind dying. I want to see my son”. The supporting group with those who lost their children are helping me. Since the disaster, my husband and I have been arguing all the time. When I start crying to watch TV, he gets mad as he is sick of seeing me crying. He says I should calm. In old times, our child was a cushion between my husband and me. I cannot stand watching the TV on kids bullying. I feel the gap between the families that lost all children and the families that have at least one surviving child. I own a rice field, but I am having other people managing it. What’s the point to take care of the rice field that was supposed to be succeeded by our son, whom we lost. Now I am enjoying the gardening. I would like to grow flowers to place for our family Buddhist alter.